Double Your Facebook Likes in Just Five Minutes a Day

Despite recent concerns over a decrease in organic reach for its business users, Facebook remains a powerful and relevant part of effective online marketing and social interaction for many companies. With more than 1.3 billion active users (680 million of whom access the site from mobile devices) the social media giant is a potential goldmine for brands who can leverage its capabilities—even if they’re not interested in paying to promote their posts. Garnering a greater number of Facebook likes takes dedicated effort and promotion, but may prove to be worth the effort for companies willing to invest the time and energy to build real relationships with their followers.

Active and regular sharing of content on your page is a great way to interact with the people who follow you (and also boosts your Edgerank, the metric Facebook uses to determine reach). As with your company’s own page, the quality of the content you share on your Facebook page matters. To encourage interaction and sharing, make sure your content is high-quality and relevant to your audience’s interests and needs.

Photos and other visual content are one of the most powerful ways to share on Facebook, generating 53 percent more likes and 104 greater engagement when compared to the average text post. Again, relevance is key—when a post is related to a user’s personal identity or causes they support, their sharing rates climb as high as 84 percent.

It’s not just about broadcasting and sharing, however. To maximize your reach (and likes) on Facebook, you’ll need to interact frequently (and genuinely) with other pages, your followers, and potential partners. Liking pages, commenting on posts, and contributing your expertise and insights to ongoing conversations can work wonders, as can addressing any feedback, questions, or concerns from your followers in a timely fashion. You can also connect your Facebook account to Twitter for automatic reposts and shares, but remember that Twitter is a very different environment, and its users have different expectations and behaviors.

Facebook may be moving to a more aggressive pay-for-play model for its business users, but dedicated and savvy users can still take advantage of the site’s potential to review and share content, build an audience, and connect with their social media fanbase to boost their likes as they work toward social media success.

Check out the rest of this series, and become a social media powerhouse!

Double Your Facebook Likes in Just 5 Minutes Per Day

There are more than 1 billion active Facebook users around the world, and this number is continually growing. If you don’t already have your company on Facebook, now is the time to join. Follow these tips to increase your likes and connections on Facebook.

Make Connections

Connect with other Facebook Page admins with a similar demographic to yours then cross-promote with them.

For example, ice cream shop owners can connect and cross promote with a pizza shop near them since they likely have the same customers.

Invite your email subscribers via email, provide them with a description and an incentive to like your page.

According to HubSpot, 80% of social media users prefer to connect with brands via Facebook.

Share Content

Share content with your fans so they will share it with their friends.

Every time you publish something on your blog, share it on Facebook.

Share original content and compelling photos that are appropriate for your audience and will catch their attention.

According to Ipsos, photos are the most popular type of content shared on social media, with 43% of survey respondents indicating they do so.

Post frequently about something newsworthy and relevant to your readers.

Keep these findings from a New York Times study in mind when considering the type of content you post:

49% of social media users share content that allows them to inform others about things they care about and have the potential to change opinions or encourage action.

68% of social media users share content so they can give their friends a better sense of who they are and what they care about.

84% of social media users share content that allows them support causes they care about.

Be Active

Comment on other pages where your target audience is already having conversations.

Start by liking the pages then keep an eye on their posts that pop up in your news feed.

Make sure your comments add to the conversation and help you build relationships.

Tread lightly when doing this, you don’t want to cross any lines and upset other page owners.

Share and tag your business page from your personal Facebook account.

If you host any live events, take lots of photos then encourage your fans to tag themselves.